Self‐perpetuation of Political Power

I investigate the relationship between tenure length in the House and posterior political success. I exploit a natural experiment in the Argentine Congress – where terms length were assigned randomly after the return to democracy – that provides a source of exogenous variation to initial political power. I find that having a longer tenure in the House increases both the probability of moving to higher political positions and the probability of having a relative in future congresses. I also find that name recognition is a mechanism behind dynastic success. Finally, I report a negative correlation between being a dynastic legislator and political effort.